Updated March 12 / Marisol Ferrante
Lists that fit on one screen
I plan about nine trips a year, most of them short, most of them cheap. These are the actual lists I use, kept short enough to read on a phone in a taxi.
Every list here started as a mistake. The carry-on list exists because I once checked a bag for a two-night trip and spent forty minutes at a baggage belt in Porto. The documents list exists because a friend's passport got soaked in a boat and it turned out none of us had a photo of it.
There are no gear reviews on this site. I do not care which brand of packing cube you own. What I care about is the order you do things in, because the order is what stops you standing in your hallway at 5am wondering whether you turned the boiler down.
Carry-on only
Thirty-one items, four to six nights, no checked bag. The one I have rewritten most often.
Weekend city break
Two nights, one bag, arriving after dark. Includes the pre-leaving-the-house block.
Long-haul flight
Not a packing list. What goes in the seat pocket and when to do what.
Where to start
If you have never used a written packing list, do not start with the master list. It is long on purpose and it will put you off. Start with the weekend one, use it once, and notice which two lines you ignored. Delete those two lines. That is your list now.
If you already use lists and want to know why mine are shaped the way they are, read how I build a list. It is mostly an argument about doing things in blocks of time rather than by category.
Readers fix my lists
People send me swaps - a line they cut, a line they added, and why. The good ones go on the swaps page with the sender's first name and city. Four of the lines in the carry-on list came from readers, and one of them (the shower cap over the shoe soles) I resisted for a year before admitting it works.
My Escape Planner. Lists are written from trips actually taken. Nothing here is sponsored and no gear is sent to me.